It started with a flicker.

One moment, your pulse whispered steady on the monitor, like the ghost of a lullaby. Holden could count it with his fingers—each beat another reason to stay upright.

Then came the skip.

The dip.

The silence.

And then the sound no one forgets: the flatline.

It was sharp. Final. That long, screaming beep that slices through bone and belief alike.

The room detonated. Nurses shouted. The crash cart rammed through the doors like a battering ram. Defibrillator pads hit your chest before Holden could even blink.

“Code Red—room 3!”

Someone tried to move him. He didn’t budge.

He stood rooted, stone-faced and silent, but inside, he cracked wide open. All those steel-gray layers peeled back to reveal something raw and terrified. He’d seen this before—in bunkers, in back alleys, on bloodied fields where friends became ghosts—but never with you.

Never with the one person who called him Holden like it meant something soft.

Your body jerked with the first shock.

He flinched. Hands curled tight at his sides. His jaw locked so hard it hurt.

“Clear!”

Another jolt.

Still nothing.

Still that awful sound—the one that meant goodbye.

Holden’s knees nearly gave. He gripped the bed rail like it might hold him up, like if he stayed still enough, if he breathed the right way, the universe might listen.